Chapter 392: Desperate Supply Line

The black torrent was still gathering.

Sun Wukong stood in Wanshen Fenchang, watching wide-eyed as things surged in from all directions.

It was not light. It was not power.

It was despair.

It was the last thing that shattered in the hearts of hundreds of millions of living beings at the moment before death.

He could see it.

His Fiery Golden Eyes made all those invisible things perfectly clear to him.

Streams of black rivers spanned hundreds of millions of light-years, quietly seeping out from every world that had been trampled by the 'Great Harvest'.

The deathly silence of 'the god is dead' that lingered in the heart when a feathered being leapt down.

The hope that had just arisen was snuffed out the instant a cultivator rushed into the void gate.

In that fantasy world, the feeling of emptiness in the heart when an elf set down their harp.

All of it turned into black rivers.

All of it flowed in the same direction.

Toward here.

Toward that gate.

Toward the place where the master's Dao Heart was imprisoned.

"Damn."

Sun Wukong uttered that word in a low voice.

His voice was calm. But his hand gripping the iron rod turned white at the knuckles.

He watched as those black rivers, one after another, drilled into the chains on the gate.

Those chains grew thicker.

The chains that had been dulled by his Chaos Dao now, as if drunk, emitted a dull hum and turned thick and dark.

Darker. Thicker. Stronger.

The monkey-head graffiti he had previously daubed on the gate had begun to be corroded by the black vapor seeping from the edges of the chains.

The gold receded inward bit by bit.

It was as if the enemy had opened a supply line, shipping ammunition from the whole universe here, an endless stream.

And he, Sun Wukong, could only stand here, just watching.

"He is using the pain of the whole universe to torment the master!"

These words were squeezed out from between his teeth, not a shout.

They were gritted out.

Yao stood at his side, her face deathly pale.

She felt it too.

"Illusory Dream" Dao is most sensitive to emotion; each strand of the gathered despair that brushed past her felt like someone rubbing sandpaper on her heart.

"Those chains..." she whispered, "with each pulse I can hear..."

"Don't listen." Sun Wukong interrupted her.

"But——"

"Don't listen!"

His voice sank, turning a bit fierce.

Yao closed her mouth, but her eye rims reddened.

Sun Wukong said nothing.

He knew what Yao had heard.

With each tightening of the chains, a sound was trapped inside.

It was not the sound of the chains.

It was the crying of hundreds of millions of living beings, compressed into those black chains and then unloaded onto the master's Dao Heart.

Over and over.

He turned his head, staring fixedly at that gate.

That gate remained motionless, the golden divine chains and black chains intertwined, stable as a rock.

He could feel it.

Behind the gate, something was gradually tightening.

"He is forcing me."

Sun Wukong spoke those words in a flat tone, so flat it felt even more chilling.

Yao lifted her head to look at him.

"He has calculated it all," Sun Wukong slowly turned back, looking at Yao, "Either I stay here and watch the master be slowly worn to death by these despairs,"

He paused for a moment.

"Or I leave here, go strangle all the harvest's disciples to death, save those civilizations, and cut off his supply."

Yao said nothing, but her eyes already understood.

This is a dead end.

If we stay and guard, the master cannot endure.

If we leave to save people, there will be no one left to guard here.

When he returns, we don't know what state he'll be in.

Two roads, no matter which you take, it's death.

Damn, that's lacking virtue.

Sun Wukong muttered a curse.

No anger.

It's just a pure, honest assessment.

The chain pulsed again.

This time, the gold on the monkey-head graffiti grew thinner by another layer.

Sun Wukong's eyes narrowed sharply.

He stepped forward and placed his hand on the door.

The door was cold.

That cold wasn't temperature; it was a chill seeping from the cracks in the bones, a temperature of despair.

He could feel that behind the door, that Dao Heart was still beating.

Very faint.

But it was beating.

"Master."

He didn't speak aloud; he said it with his divine sense.

Behind the door, there was a moment of silence, then a faint, extremely faint response came through.

Like a candle in the wind, about to go out but not yet.

Sun Wukong stared at that door for a long time.

Yao walked over, stood behind him, and spoke softly.

"Have you decided?"

"No."

Sun Wukong said: "There's no way you could have thought this through."

He withdrew his hand from the door, turned, and looked at Yao.

"How are you doing right now?"

Yao gave a bitter smile. "Far worse than you."

"All right." Sun Wukong nodded, something in his eyes sinking then rising, "Then stay here."

Yao blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Guard Master." Sun Wukong lifted the Chaos Dao Iron, walked two steps forward, stopped, his back to her, "With you here, even if the chain keeps drawing despair, it won't go out of control. Your Illusory Dream Great Dao can give him a bit of space."

"Then you—"

"I'll go cut off his supply line."

He said it softly, but Yao heard it and her heart clenched.

"Going alone?"

"It's not the first time."

"That's different!" Yao's voice rose, "Those apostles, those war planets, and those—"

"What else?" Sun Wukong turned his head, the corner of his mouth twitching into a smile, "Is the Original Mistake still eyeing me?"

He blinked.

"This isn't perfect."

"How is it perfect?" Yao glared at him.

Sun Wukong didn't answer right away.

He lowered his head and glanced at the Chaos Dao Iron in his hand—a plain-looking stone staff, in the dim light of Wanshen Fenchang, quiet and unremarkable.

"You know why it's been waiting for me to come, instead of just attacking?"

Yao frowned.

Sun Wukong wiped off his smile, his voice dropping.

"Because it wants Master to watch, to see me being toyed to death by it."

"That's the outcome it desires most."

"So once I leave here—" he lifted his gaze, the two chaos vortices in his eyes spinning sharply, "it will have to come."

The air fell silent for a moment.

Yao understood.

Her face went pale, then paler.

"You're using yourself as bait."

"Smart."

"Sun Wukong!"

"Hey, why shout so loud?" Sun Wukong turned, casually patted her head, "Just stay here and guard Master well."

"What if it doesn't come for you, what if it comes straight here—"

"It won't." Sun Wukong cut her off, "It hates me."

As he said that, his tone carried a strange certainty.

"He hates more than anything else."

Yao looked at him, her eyes reddening, she opened her mouth to say something, but in the end said nothing.

Sun Wukong had already turned and taken a step.

The Chaos Dao iron rested on his shoulder, his steps steady.

After walking a few steps, he suddenly stopped, without turning back, and whispered a sentence.

"Yao, wait for me to come back."

Then, space split open.

His silhouette vanished into the pitch-black void.

Wanshen Fenchang returned to silence.

Yao stood before the door, clutching the hem of her skirt, her fingertips turning white.

Those black chains were still sucking in the despair flowing from afar, pulsing beat by beat.

But deep within the gate, that faint Dao Heart still beat.

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and slowly unfurled her Illusory Dream power, like a thin net, lightly covering the gate.

Just then.

In the distant void, a burst of sky‑piercing golden light exploded.

Immediately after, a voice crossed hundreds of millions of li and returned.

"Withered old thing! Tell your master, I've come!"